Doing her rounds: Tanya Plibersek with nurse manager Sue Coles and Dr Thomas Chan. Picture: Michael Clayton-Jones/The Age.
SOUTHERN Health has been granted an eleventh-hour reprieve with the announcement of a $13.6 million funding boost from the federal government.
Health minister Tanya Plibersek last week visited the Monash Medical Centre to announce the cash injection.
"It's been a very difficult few months for patients and for health staff and we want to make sure that we see those frontline services restored as quickly as possible," she said.
"It's highly unusual for us to have to go around the state government in this way."
Southern Health will directly get the money from the federal government instead of it being provided through the state.
Saying the move was a one-off, Ms Plibersek condemned comments by Victorian Health Minister David Davis that the federal government had shortchanged the state's hospital system.
"We hope that we won't need to take this sort of action again in the future but we couldn't stand by and let patients continue to suffer and we couldn't stand by and impose this insecurity on hospital staff."
The announcement follows weeks of tension between the state and federal governments over who would plug a black hole in funding following cuts to hospitals across Victoria. The deep cuts followed the release of census data that suggested Victoria's population had not grown as much as expected.
Southern Health had been forced to close at least 20 beds and a medicine and rehabilitation ward.